The Biden administration is pledging to promote abortion “at home and abroad” as part of a new 10-point strategy by the White House Gender Policy Council that is being billed as a “moral” imperative.
The administration posted the 10-point “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality” on the White House website Friday, saying President Biden and Vice President Harris “believe that advancing gender equity and equality is fundamental to every individual’s economic security, safety, health, and ability to exercise their most basic rights.”
The document calls them “strategic priorities.”
“Ensuring that all people, regardless of gender, have the opportunity to realize their full potential is, therefore, both a moral and strategic imperative,” the document says in a summary of the strategy’s goals.
The administration calls it the “first-ever national gender strategy to advance the full participation of all people – including women and girls – in the United States and around the world.”
Some of the strategies – such as preventing and responding to gender-based violence – would receive bipartisan support.
But other strategies, such as the promotion of legalized abortion, are controversial. The document references abortion twice and places it under the wider strategy for health care.
“To protect, improve, and expand access to health care, we will … defend the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion in the United States, established in Roe v. Wade, and promote access to sexual and reproductive health and rights both at home and abroad,” the document says.
Abortion is also referenced in the document’s closing paragraphs when it discusses the Biden administration’s record on the issue. The document notes that the Biden administration rescinded what it calls the “Global Gag Rule,” a pro-life policy that prohibited U.S. money from being used by international organizations to promote abortion. Supporters call it the Mexico City Policy. Biden rescinded it in January.
“The President also launched a whole-of-government effort to respond to the recent Texas law which blatantly violates women’s constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion under Roe v. Wade,” the document says, referencing the Texas law that prohibits abortion if an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detected.
Harris promoted the National Strategy on social media, tweeting, “This is our vision for the future of our nation – one that is bold in strategy and one that this moment calls for.”
President Biden and I released the first ever National Gender Strategy. This is our vision for the future of our nation—one that is bold in strategy and one that this moment calls for.https://t.co/89T8lDmkIM
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) October 23, 2021
Related:
Biden Says He Doesn't Believe Life Begins at Conception, Labels Texas Law 'Almost Un-American'
Court Upholds Texas Ban on Dismemberment Abortion, Says It’s ‘Self-Evidently Gruesome’
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/LightFieldStudios
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
